CHRIST LIFTED ON HIGH

 In this morning’s gospel we heard Jesus tell his disciples, 

“And just as Moses lifted up [hupsoō] the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up [hupsoō] so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life”

I’[d like to offer some thoughts about the Greek verb hupsoō,  “to lift up.” 

Most of the time in the New Testament the word is used figuratively for “lifting” someone to a position of honor or power: “Whoever exalts [hupsoō] himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted [hupsoō]” (Matt. 23:12).

But John uses it in its literal sense in this morning’s gospel when referring to a scene from the book ofNumbers In which Moses fashions a bronze serpent so that the Israelites who are being punished by being bitten by "fiery serpents" can gaze on the bronze figure and be healed.

This is what Jesus is referring to when he says, “Moses lifted up [hupsoō] the serpent in the desert” (John. 3:14a).

This literal use of “to lift up” in the Old Testament provides John with exactly the image he needs to express Christ’s being physically “lifted up” on the cross: he writes “And just as Moses lifted up [hupsoō] the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up [hupsoō] so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

With his love for double meanings, John will continue this image of “lifting up” later on, in Jesus’ambiguous promise, “And when I am lifted up [hupsoō] from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself” (John 12:32-34). 

Does this “being lifted up” refer to Christ’s being literally lifted up on the cross, or to his finally being lifted up in glory to the right hand of God? Or does it refer to both at the same time? 

John’s deliberate ambiguity points up the mysterious nature of the crucifixion and of all human suffering. 

But he also gives us a central insight about human suffering later in his gospel when he writes that by being lifted up on the cross Christ “draws all to himself” (Jn 12:32-33): 

Calvary is just the first step in a process. 

After being “lifted up” onto the cross Jesus will then be “lifted up” out of death by his Father and finally raised on high to sit at the right hand of the Father. 

And – here is the crucial point -- we too are to be lifted up along with him as he draws us all to himself!

John, by playing on the double meaning of “lifted up,”  links our human suffering with the mystery of Calvary, and then, with the cross as the starting point, describes a single upward surge in which all of creation – including our darkest valleys of sin and suffering – is embraced by Christ and lifted heavenward by him and with him in the vast, infinite and inexorable power of divine unconditional love. 

And so, Christ’s cross becomes the very means by which all of us, too, are lifted to salvation. 

Suffering is a mysterious but somehow an integral part of this ceaseless upward movement of divine love.

So, let us pray that we may be blessed with the eyes of faith when we look on our troubled world – just as when we look upon a crucifix. 

With those eyes and with the help of John’s beautiful image, we may be able to see that we and our dark valleys, and the whole world and its struggles, are continuously being “lifted up” by Christ in that single inevitable heavenward motion when all creation has been transformed, and every tear wiped away, and when every evil has been overcome and every pain forgotten amid the eternal joys of heaven.